Firewire Port on a notebook

J

Jas

Suspended / Banned
Messages
639
Edit My Images
Yes
Did a search to check if this has already been answered, but as is generally known that most notebooks have a 4 pin firewire port and therefore a firewire reader cannot normally be used with it.

The question is, can a 6 pin reader be added or any recent developments to allow the 4 pin to somehow be used for plugging in a firewire reader?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Jas
 
Thanks for the reply Simon, I do have a PCMCIA slot on my Dell 9400. Are the Firewire adaptors pretty much plug in and use after a little software loading / configuration?
 
Jas said:
Thanks for the reply Simon, I do have a PCMCIA slot on my Dell 9400. Are the Firewire adaptors pretty much plug in and use after a little software loading / configuration?
Click to expand...

Yep - got a PCMCIA one at work on a Dell Latitude D600. It cost about a tenner, I seem to recall, and has two 6-pin and one 4-pin Firewire sockets on it. Running XP, I'm not sure it even needed a driver.
 
Be carefull, as most of the pcmcia cards dont provide power over the firewire sockets only data, you would have to check each cards specs, they are ok for items with external power supplies.
 
Jas,

Just check it's definately a PCMCIA Slot and not an ExpressCard Slot; I made that mistake when I got a CompactFlash reader for my Compaq laptop.

Also, a suggestion: You've got USB 2.0 ports on that machine, they're 480 MB/s over the 400 MB/s you get with FW400 - why not use them instead?

Edit: Actually, thinking about it, I think the quoted speed for USB 2.0 is the burst rate while FW400 offers a better sustained transfer rate.
 
Jas

If you've an express card slot why not use a card adapter for the slot. maybe cheaper than getting a firewire card. Check out Delkin as they do Compact Flash ones and ( I think but don't quote me on this )SD ones as well.
 
If you've got an express card/PCMCIA slot get an adaptor for your card to go in there, not only is it quicker, it's a lot neater too. Mac's have the 6 pin ***!
 
Wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy a usb reader?
 
Thanks for all the replies folks.

I have a USB 2.0 reader, but as I understand, it's much slower than a firewire. Speed is the issue rather than cost to be honest as often am out shooting in low light where you don't get to check the pictures too quickly, or sometimes back from a weeks holiday where i don't take the laptop with me.

From what I have read of other peoples experiences, Firewire loading of images is pretty quick compared to a usb CF reader at the scale of a full 4Gb card and 2 x 2Gb cards of RAW files.

MHO, thanks for the tip, i believe that the external power supply capability could be an important issue for consideration although a CF reader should not need external power, I also aim to use the Firewire 6 pin to connect my external drive that I use for backups.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top